Sen. Hutchison zigs, zags in stance on pork

COMMENTARYHutchison: No on bill, yes on pork

Published 5:30 am, Monday, March 16, 2009

That was U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s wishful sentiment in a press release last week. But maybe our senior senator in Washington could use a dose of that good old Texas common sense herself.

Hutchison stood on the floor of the Senate and spoke out against the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Bill. She advertised her opposition in a press release that bemoaned the long-term consequences of America’s irresponsible spending and soaring debt obligations.

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But it passed anyway. And as soon as it did, Hutchison began taking credit for nearly $54 million in Houston-area pork she helped secure within the $410 billion, pork-filled bill she’d condemned.

One after another, eight press releases were issued announcing Hutchison’s victories. To name a few: $34.4 million for the Houston Ship Channel and Houston-Galveston navigation channels; $15 million for Houston Metro; $300,000 for Houston’s Julia Ideson library; $500,000 for something called a “Virtual Space Community.”

Hutchison did offer a disclaimer explaining that, although she was “pleased that she was able to secure significant funding for many deserving projects in Texas,” she voted against the final budget because it grew more than 8 percent from the previous year and included “duplicative and unnecessary spending.”

“At a time when American families are facing tough economic decisions, she believes Congress should show spending restraint,” Hutchison’s press release stated.

So, you might say she was for it before she was against it. Or maybe for it before she was against it, before she was for it again.

Either way, it’s the kind of logic you’d get from a stuffy Democratic senator from Massachusetts. Not a potential gubernatorial contender from Texas. It’s the kind of ammunition for which her likely opponent, Gov. Rick Perry, is waiting.

Twenty years ago, Hutchison might have been accused of Grammstanding, the term assigned to Texas’ former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm for his tendency of taking undeserved credit for legislation he didn’t help pass or sometimes that he opposed.

Hutchison’s tactics aren’t novel. Despite the outrage fueled by Alaska’s Bridge to Nowhere, and more recently, the porkiest of pork projects, a study on why pigs smell, most people know how the game of congressional earmarks is played.

In Washington, the politicians complain about the pork. Back at home, most of them brag about bringing home the bacon. Indeed, many see it as their core mission. And the truth is, the evil isn’t really in the earmarks. It’s in a process still cloaked enough to allow corruption and waste. Many are worthy projects, and they make up at the most 3 percent of the budget.

Although Hutchison led Texas’ delegation with earmarks, at least 104 items work about $250 million in the House version of the budget, she was by no means alone. As my colleagues Stewart M. Powell and Richard S. Dunham reported, Libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, topped the House list with $96.1 million worth and Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, was second with $63.6 million.

Republicans don’t have the lock on earmarks, though. To secure the Metro funding, for example, Hutchison worked with several House Democrats.

But the hypocrisy and double-standards at play in the pork lottery are impossible to ignore. As Republican leaders gleefully seized on Obama’s backtracking on a campaign pledge to cut pork as he signed a bill with 9,000 earmarks, Republican congress members who voted against the bill were reveling in the fruits of their home-project spending sprees.

Talking out of both sides of one’s mouth is what Washington is about. But let’s see how well that strategy works for Hutchison back home.